


Awakening

by dollsome



Category: Merlin (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgana turns herself in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awakening

She pretends to be asleep. Arthur and Merlin stand outside the bars of her cell, speaking in low voices.

“She is my sister,” Arthur says. “She’s the only family I have left.”

“You’ve got Gwen,” Merlin argues, and then: “you’ve got me.”

“It’s different,” Arthur says. “It’s blood.”

“Does that really matter so much?” Merlin asks, uncomprehending. “After everything that’s happened …”

 _Yes,_ Morgana thinks.

“Yes,” Arthur says.

  


+

  
When she is finally let out of the dungeon, her wrists are rubbed raw; it might as well be years ago, Uther teaching her a lesson.

The guards escort her to the throne room. She could knock both of them through the stone walls with a twitch of her fingers. She doesn’t. The magic nips at her, grumpily, like a puppy who doesn’t like being ignored. She keeps her head high and stares straight forward. The Lady Morgana of Camelot, no stranger to these halls.

Arthur is waiting for her – only Arthur. For once, he isn’t flanked by Merlin and Gwen. He dismisses the guards. Morgana sinks to the floor in front of him, part curtsey and part collapse. They hadn’t starved her, but she did not eat much. Didn’t have much of an appetite. Now she regrets it.

“Arise,” Arthur says.

She would rather stay on the floor. She stands anyway, and meets his eyes.

“Many would call me a fool,” he says, “to allow you back into this kingdom after what you’ve done.”

“Far be it from me,” she answers, her voice scratchy with disuse, “to disagree with anyone who’d call you a fool.”

He laughs starkly. She shivers. Blames her hunger, her exhaustion.

“Why are you here, Morgana?”

“I told you,” she says. “To atone.”

It still unsettles her, to see a king’s eyes looking out at her from that face. “And you think you can?”

“No,” she says truthfully. (You see: she can do that.) “But I’m going to try anyway.”

He considers her for a long time. She can see how badly she wants to believe her. It wrenches her heart, stirring a sad affinity. She wants so badly to be believed.

“I will never trust you again,” he says at last. He sounds almost sorry.

“You’d be a fool if you did,” she has to admit.

  
+

  
He sets her up in one of the tower bedchambers. It’s drafty and dusty. Guards are posted at the door night and day. But she has a window; it lets in the light. She can ask for no more.

Gwen brings her three dresses, none of them black. They don’t speak much, and in a way it feels like old times, Gwen bustling around the room with gentle efficiency while Morgana sits in bed. Of course, now Gwen is the queen and Morgana is a monster. But a repentant one, and surely that must count for something. Gwen thinks so. Morgana can tell. She abandons her black rags for light green, and dresses herself.

Merlin comes and tells her, in tones very calm and very plain, what he will do to her if she tries anything. She is strong, he says, but he is stronger, with a heart that hasn’t been gnarled by hate. If it comes to a fight, he will win. Again. (She knows all of that already. She means to do this right. She would be hurt by their lack of faith in her, except – well.)

Arthur stays away. He never could deny her anything; she guesses he knows that as well as she does, and this is his precaution against it. It bothers her. She wants him to remember her as she was once, as she means to be again. It would be so much easier to become that girl again if he were there to coax her out of the dark. She misses the annoying quirks of his face. One afternoon he is out training on the grounds with the knights. She watches him from the window, heavy-hearted, as she always used to. He looks up at her; after a moment, he lifts his hand. Slowly, she raises hers.

  
+

The dream comes to her most nights: Arthur older and soaked with blood, his head in her lap, staring up at her with bleary eyes while battle rages on around them. She runs her fingers over his hair like a mother would, and feels the most perfect peace.

She wakes up screaming, thundering heart and lightning-strikes in her bones.

No. No, no, no.

Not this time, she always vows upon waking. Not that future.

She climbs out of bed and goes to her window. Considers the moonlight and all the stars. _First Sister, then Father, and Brother makes three, merry murderess,_ taunts a voice in her head very much like her own. _Is there anything you won’t do?_

“Yes,” Morgana says aloud, awake now.


End file.
